Manuscripts have an essential importance as being irreplaceable parts of our cultural heritage. It has long been known that these works have been suffered from serious damages due to the corrosive effects of the inks. In this study, the influence of inks prepared according to historical recipes on the degradation of model paper has been investigated. Totally, sixteen ink solutions were prepared and applied on Whatman No. 41 filter papers. The mostly examined ink is the iron-gall-ink which is known as very corrosive. Changing the ratios of the ingredients in the ink, it is aimed to understand the degradation mechanism of the cellulose caused by the iron-gall-ink. Influence of iron to gallic acid ratio, copper to iron ratio and the effect of saffron on ink corrosion were examined. Also the influence of colored inks (red and green) / prepared according to the historical recipes on cellulose degradation was studied. In order to determine the changes in the cellulose in time, dry heat accelerated ageing was performed on the paper samples. UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR-ATR and Color spectrophotometry were used to investigate the changes in the chemical composition of the cellulose after accelerated ageing.

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